The Library

Hi all. Time for a bit of an update on what’s been going on at work I suppose considering I’ve now been here going on 8 weeks.

Well I started off slowly, had to cringe, ignore and bite my tongue over the cleanliness of the place but slowly we are getting there! As it happens the other ladies in the library are also keen for a clean place so now I’ve shown the cleaner the way, we are on to it! We have a male cleaner here so needless to say he doesn’t go near the toilet unless pushed – firmly! Seems we have also lost our full time cleaner so not sure what happened there.

I have tried really hard not to be cyclone Angela!! There has been a bit to catch up on and get my head around. I begun by trying to figure out what small amount is left in my very small library budget. A series of spreadsheets later and I think I have a grip on the situation but want a bet there are hidden things I don’t know about. Things seem to work pretty successfully in a manual way round here. Things get paid for by raising a cheque and the ladies in Accounts are very efficient about producing cheques, on their electronic typewriter.

Once I had the budget “under control” next step was to start to spend what is left! I managed to learn who the appropriate lecturing staff were, that I needed to be in contact with and I circulated 6 months worth of publishers catalogues to them (once I finished opening 6 months worth of mail!) I think they were very happy to have someone finally here to buy them new stuff as I have had quite a good response! Actually I’ve enjoyed doing acquisitions but I’m still learning as it’s a long time since I last did the purchasing for a library. I am also slowly learning about what areas we need to purchase in. Seems to be crops, agriculture, irrigation, soil, engineering, pests, cows, chickens etc etc.

I also had to allocate a part of the budget to “operating expenses”. So far we have managed to get some wooden chairs in the library recovered to replace the ripped orange seat covers with half their foam missing. We now have chocolate brown. Very nice! We have purchased a guillotine so we can chop up spine labels easily and straight! We also have a new heavy duty stapler which the students are going to love in the new semester. I am thinking about a laminator. The library used to have one but it broke. It would be good to make some new shelf signs and notices for the place and laminating them would help them last.

The main impact I have managed to have so far is the remodelling of the library counter!! It’s the semester break so the best time for making a mess – well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it! Last week we had the maintenance guys in here banging and crashing and breaking down the barricade! Luckily for me the previous librarian also mentioned how bad the desk was so it wasn’t too hard to get something done about it. We now have a nice gate and way out from behind the counter so we can help the students easier i.e we can get out from behind the barricade! We took a higher part of the desk away so now it’s low and flat and open. Very welcoming. We are all liking it. Along with this I managed to get a flat screen monitor out of IT instead of the huge heavy one we had before so that we can easily turn the screen around when we are searching for things for the students. See Flickr for some pictures of the new counter.

We have a new DVD collection that arrived in a box from Fiji. Very nice of them to send these to us. They have been a great hit especially during the holiday break. My next job is to try and get a TV and DVD player for the library (and the campus) so that the students and lecturers without laptops can make use of the collection. In conjunction with this we have an ancient but valuable collection of video tapes that are in all manner of conditions. Hit rate does not seem to be very good for cleaning and converting these to DVD so sadly we might be losing some very good titles.

Have been doing some work on the library system – Athena. This seems to be a very stable and adequate system. Very basic but does what we want for now. There is no acquisitions module so orders are made separately in an Access database. Means no one knows what we have on order which is a shame. I have tweaked up some item types that control the issue periods and now need to do some global changes. Am working on exporting data out of the system, fixing it up and importing it back in. Not sure if I will be successful with this! There are rumours we might be moving to Koha here, the NZ developed open source software for library management, so watch this space.

So next tasks before the semester break is over is to brighten the place up a bit before the new students start. I have some ideas about covering boards with brightly coloured fabric or lavalava printed with frangipani or hibiscus etc and hanging these panels up on the wall. I think the locals think I’m nuts but hey I’m giving it a go. Am also going to work on the computers that are in the library and tidy them up a bit, make sure they are working correctly and make sure there is easy access to library resources oh and also remove everyone’s personal pictures that seem to end up as the desktop default! This might be a job that takes a while. The web site will also need updating and then there’s the web catalogue – you get the picture! Plenty of projects to work on.

The saving grace is that I have joined a few groups started by USP in Fiji to discuss Web 2.0 initiatives and have also been speaking to one of the librarians there about the use of Second Life in libraries and education. It’s a start – even though I can’t get in there myself at the moment! I am trying to keep up to date with things as best possible. I welcome any hints on what the next new technology for libraries is. The internet connection here sometimes stops me from being able to upload, download or even read my NetVibes page. Fridays are best as its Saturday in Fiji by then! Oh and also emails seem to disappear into the wild blue yonder of their own free will so if you don’t hear back from me it could be that it went poof!

Well it’s peaceful and quiet in the library today. No shhhhhhing required. One staff member on leave and another learning First Aid as she says – just in case I collapse one day then she can help me out!